INDIA, UK TO CO-OPERATE ON IP ENFORCEMENT

According to reports in the Indian media, the country's government is negotiating with two British institutions on developing intellectual property rights. It is hoped that the discussions will result in co-operation on training patent lawyers at local universities, as officials attempt to improve the infrastructure for enforcing India's new intellectual property laws.

Trade officials also confirm that they have received similar offers of help from educational institutions in several other developed countries. However, the government admits that existing systems for processing the huge backlog of patent applications, which swelled ahead of the TRIPS-compliant product patent law introduced early in 2005, is widely regarded as inadequate.

Although there are plans for WIPO to help a central intellectual property institute take the lead on training Indian patent officials, it appears that China has made faster progress on processing applications. Despite a widely criticised failure to uphold IP rights on key products, it is claimed that China has created over 5,000 patent training institutions and currently processes over 300,000 applications each year. Although India receives far fewer submissions, industry sources acknowledge that the country could lose competitiveness if an effective patent system is not implemented in the short term.